


do you know what it's like to miss you?

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1980s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bisexual Tony Stark, Boarding School, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Kid Tony Stark, M/M, MIT Era, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark-centric, jarvis is tonys dad dont try to fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21564148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: Did you really think Tony was raised by Howard and Maria?--“See you, Master Anthony,” and Tony can practically smell him. Mint and home.“See?” he says, just to draw out his time a little more, even though his dorm-mother is glaring at him. “I can't see you yet. I’ll hear you later.”“Alright. Hear you later, Tony,” he says affectionately.“Hear you later, Jarvis,” he whispers back and the cold click of the phone disconnecting echoes in his ear.
Relationships: Ana Jarvis & Tony Stark, Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Maria Stark & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 159





	1. Chapter 1

His earliest memory is of Jarvis.

Not his father, mother, any other family, anything _normal_ . It’s of his _butler_.

Him, Jarvis, sitting on the lawn with him. They’re having a picnic and Tony can still remember the scratch of the woolen blanket under his fingers. Ana is inside for a moment, most likely fetching something like the pavlovas she used to make; huge towering pillars of meringue and sugar, fruit and cream. 

That was one of the only times Tony saw Jarvis without his customary suit on, polished and professional. His jacket's gone, dress shirt rolled up, tie missing and two buttons undone. 

“Do you love me, Jarvis?” Tony asked, staring up with wide, wide eyes. He knew, even then, that something was wrong with his father and his mother. That month-long absences weren’t normal. 

Jarvis seems to...buffer, for a moment, then catches up and says, “Of course I do.”

He chews his lip, “does Ana?”

“I’m sure she does,” he smiles down at him. He turns to look over his shoulder. “In fact, you can ask her.” Ana is making her way across the green lawn, red, redskirt swirling around her slim legs. 

He gets up and chases towards her, even as she laughs and lifts the plate she’s carrying above her head. 

That day is his favourite. It hangs in his conscious like a golden, shining curtain to open when he wants a waft of summer and love to ghost over him like hands. 

\--

He goes to boarding school he is six. Most rich kids like him do, but he’s a lot earlier than most. Story of his life, right? Declared a prodigy at 4, genius at 6.

“And we will call, and in the holidays you’ll come home, and it will all work out, Master Anthony,” Jarvis tells him, as they walk down the hallway. Tony is due to leave this afternoon. 

“I don't wanna go, Jarvis,” Tony says in a small voice. Jarvis stops, in the corridor, and sets down his bag. He gets down on one knee and grasps him firmly by the shoulder.

“It will all be alright, Tony” Jarvis says in his comforting, smooth English-Caramel voice. “You will see.”

“What if no one likes me?”

Jarvis sighs. Tony has a problem with people, he doesn't know how to act around them, how to relate. All he knows is robotics and math and numbers. Not people. “Master Anthony, don’t worry about that. You have me and Ana here, but you will also make your own, true friends.”

\--

He doesn't find true friends. He doesn't even find fake ones. He doesn't have any at all. 

The days go by pretty slow, but at the end of the week he looks back and tries to remember what he did with all that time. 

The classes are slow, recess is hell, and at meals he scoffs what he can then flees to his dorm. 

The only good part of his week is calling Jarvis. He gets 10 minutes of home once every Thursday.

“See you, Master Anthony,” and Tony can practically smell him. Mint and home. 

“See?” he says, just to draw out his time a little more, even though his dorm-mother is glaring at him. “I can't see you yet. I’ll hear you later.”

“Alright. Hear you later, Tony,” he smiles back. 

“Hear you later, Jarvis,” he whispers back and the cold click of phone the disconnecting echoes in his ear. 

\--

As he gets older, school is better. He meets Ty when he’s twelve, and he helps a lot. Ty is one of the cool kids, one of the ones that know how to use their money, their power. He doesn't care about people, people looking at him and gossiping about him.

Tony does care, though, so Ty kisses him for the first time behind his closed dorm door. Later, he looks back on it and wishes he had done it in the dining hall, or the turf, or anywhere public. Maybe that way they could be more real. Maybe that way some of the boys would bridle their homophobia. Maybe they would do the opposite. Tony doesn't known anymore. 

\--

“I’ll miss you,” he whispers the year after, after he’s been told he’s going to MIT. 

“What if you didn't have to?” Ty asks him, and looks over. They’re lying on his bed, fully clothed, above the covers. He's doing homework, Ty's playing with a rubic cube and texting and thinking, all at once. There's something on his mind, but tony can't be bothered asking, so he's just waiting for him to be done with it. 

“What are you talking about?” Tony asked carefully. 

“Run away with me,” Ty asks, and looks up at him like the entire world is tense and holding its breath for this moment. 

“We’d get caught,” Tony says flatly. 

t

“Maybe. But we’d do that together.” Ty is hopeful. He’s still hopeful. Damn him. Now Tony has to crush everything like an eggshell under his heel. 

“I...I can’t, Ty. It’s stupid.”

“Oh, we’re stupid?”

“No, no,” Tony coaxes, rolling over to touch him, as if his fingerprints will make this all better. “Not at all.”

“Then why not? Can’t you imagine it? Us, together, on the road? We could go anywhere we wanted.”

Tony closes his eyes and does imagine it, for a moment. He thinks of blue summer skies and going anywhere they want. He thinks of Ty, of living with him, of loving with him. 

He opens his eyes and grounds himself in reality. “I want to, Ty, I do. But it’s….it’s not _possible_. We’d get caught in minutes.”

Ty clears his throat. “I gotta go.”

\--

  
  


He goes to MIT at fourteen, and it’s Jarvis who sends him off, like always. 

“I’ll miss you,” he whispers against his chest as they hug, fiercely. 

“I’ll miss you too, Master Anthony,” he says back in that polished English accent and Tony wants to cry. “We’ll have phones, won’t we?” Tony nods, he continues, “and you’ll be done in four years.”

“I’ll do it in three,” he promises, and Jarvis laughs above him. 

“I’m sure you will.”

They hug for a while longer, but it feels like they’ve already said goodbye.

\--

  
  


“Okay, okay. Love you. Bye, Ma,” Rhodey says, then hangs up. James Rhodes is his new roommate, he’s nice enough but they don’t really know each other yet. 

“Hey, wanna call your folks?” he offers, holding the phone out to him. 

Tony looks up from his notes, and shrugs. “Sure.” he punches in the number to Ana and Jarvis’s phone, just like always, and waits for it to connect. 

It only rings a few times before Jarvis picks it up.

_“Hello, Edwin Jarvis speaking.”_

“Jarvis? It’s me, Tony.”

_“Ah, Master Anthony! How are you?”_

“I’m good,” he laughs, “also, don't call me that.”

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” he leaves his order unanswered, classic Jarvis fashion. 

Tony switches tact. “How is Ana?” Ana has cancer. Leukaemia. The doctor’s can't fix it. 

_“She is...uh, doing better.”_

It's a lie. He can tell, but he swallows it. He doesn't want to cause any friction, not now. “That's good. That's good. The new treatment worked?”

_“Yeah. it’s working.”_

“That's great. How’s everyone else, Peggy and Daniel, Obie?”

_“Obadiah and your father are working on some big deal. And Peggy and Daniel miss you so much, they were over here with little Sharon the other day. She asked after ‘Uncle Tony’.”_

Tony grins into his hand. “How tall is she now?”

_“Oh, up to my knee.”_

Tony laughs. “I can’t wait to see everyone in the holidays.”

_“We all await your return too, Master Anthony.”_

“Me too, Jarvis. Me too.”

_“How is MIT? Are you fitting in alright?”_

Tony thinks of the three frat parties he’s gone to over the last week and a half and says, “I guess so. I'm a little younger but that doesn't change much.”

That's right. He drinks just like everyone else.

_“That's good, we were all worried about you.”_

“Yeah,” he whispers, and closes his eyes. “You don't need to worry about me.”

_“I will always worry about you, Tony,” Jarvis says softly._

“Thanks, Jarvis,” he whispers and feels the love bloom in his chest like an explosion, waves of energy and power radiating out from his core. He eyes the papers on his desk. “I’ve gotta go, now.” There's an idea bubbling at the forefront of his mind and his fingers are already burning because he’s just sitting there. 

_“Alright, Master Anthony. Hear you next week.”_

“Hear you later. Bye,” He hangs up with a click.

He spins on his wheely-chair over to his desk and start scribbling. _a sentient being, one capable of non programmed actions. fuckin brilliant._

“Was that your father?” Rhodey asks, trying not to be curious but failing.

“No,” Tony hums, “that was...uh, the butler.” That's not how to describe Jarvis, not at all, but cannot say _substitute father_ or _dad, kind of._

“Oh." Rhodey says it like he's really realising who Tony Stark is.

Tony doesn't take it to heart, he stopped a long time ago. It’s just the truth, and the truth can’t hurt him, right?

\--

He’s graduating from MIT this afternoon. It buzzes through him like a high. The last three years have been leading up to this but he can’t believe it. 

Rhodey is going, off some active war zone after a week. Tony hasn't thought of it much, he’s trying not to. Rhodey’s off with his family right now, saying goodbye. 

There’s a rap at his door. 

“Master Anthony,” and Jarvis smiles. 

Tony reaches in to hug him. He smells the same, whole and real and minty. 

“Jarvis,” he breaths out. He can't believe it.

“How are you? Excited?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m excited,” Tony lies. He doesn't know what to do next. 

\--

“Would you like a photo with your dad?” Mr. Howells, the oblivious caretaker asks after the ceremony. 

“Uh...” Tony shoots a look at Jarvis, who just smiles. “Yeah, I'd like to take a picture with my dad."

Jarvis pulls an arm around him, Tony holds up his diploma. The rising crescendo of conversation rises in his ears until he exhales, long and steady, and the sound goes with it. 

“Smile,” Mr. Howells warns, and Tony doesn't even have to fake.

\--

He starts collabing with R&D at SI, but that’s once a week with maybe 3 designs a month. He’s a bit stir crazy, and one day, Jarvis gives him the name of the head dean for engineering at Cambridge.

He goes to England for a year. He kinda loves it there. More than New York, anyway. sometimes he thinks he’s more English than American, the way he fits inc. He always liked scones more than apple pie, anyway. 

He meets Candace at a houseparty. You know the story. They meet, they fuck, but in the morning he doesn’t leave. Well, he’s about to when he catches a glimpse of a paper she’s working on.

He snags the refill on her desk and his eyes scan the letters faster than he can really compute. 

“Put it down,” a voice comes from behind him.

He turns around, she’s awake and pulling on a shirt.

“Sorry, I was just interested,” he apologises. Some people get prickly about their work before it’s published. 

“Sure. I know about this shit,” she waves her hand around to indicate something. Tony doesn't know what.

“It’s not my field,” he says icily.

“Does that matter?”

“Well i'm not gonna do another PhD in the squishy sciences now am I?”

“What _is_ your field?” she asks, eyes narrowing. 

“Engineering.”

“Of course,” she rolls her eyes, and pulls on some pants. 

He arches and eyebrows and steps towards her. “Well, I guess you’re, what, a biologist?”

“Bio _chemist,_ actually,” she corrects. 

“Oh, well you know what that means,” he flips on her, finding his shoes under the bed.

She purses her lips. “What’s your name?”

He sighs. Her it comes. “Tony Stark.”

She doesn’t react. Apparently, the Stark name isn't so big here. “Candace Jones. Nice to meet you.”

Tony smiles. “Candace Jones, would you maybe wanna hang out sometimes?”

She raises her eyebrows and nods. “I guess you’re not so bad. For an engineering major.”

\--

They do a lot of crazy things, like set fire to a lab (admittedly by accident), win several awards unconnected to their respective fields, and dye her white-blonde hair fire-red at 3am. The first two are fun, but she beats him half-dead with a hairbrush the next morning for the last.

Still, he doesn't love her. Sometimes he sees the beauty in her laugh, in her hair, in her uncaring. It’s too much like deja vu but he can't stop. He doesn't love her but he thinks he could. 

Then, his time is up. He flies back on a long-haul flight and he gets home and stumbles into the living room, crashes on the couch. 

He wakes with painful sunlight stabbing into his retinas and the sound of his mother’s voice. " _Try to remember the kind of September, When life was slow and oh so mellow._ "

"Wake up dear, say goodbye to your father," she stops singing but keeps playing the piano.

"Who’s the homeless person on the couch?” His father, must...joke?

"This is why I love coming home for Christmas, right before you leave,” he says back, and gets up wearily. He feels like there's sand in his eyes and his joints are made of glass.

"Be nice dear," his mother tempers them, as always, "he’s been studying abroad."

"Really? Which broad? What’s her name?" father snips back. This must be where he gets it from, surely. 

"Candace," he answers, and feels it tug in his chest.

They snark back and forward, like always, and Tony tries to ignore how real it is. He’s angry, he’s been angry for a long time. 

"They say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you’ll be a great man someday," his father tells him. Tony doesn't want to listen. 

Mama tells him something, Tony tries not to believe. She comes up close, kisses him on the cheek and whispers, "bye, dear. Jarvis is in the foyer."

“Thanks, mama,” he murmurs back, and leaves her behind.

“Jarvis!” the man himself is stacking luggage on the marble floor. He looks up sharply, and his weathered face splits into a smile. Tony hurries down the stairs, skipping more than a few and nearly breaking his ankle about twice.

“Oh, my boy,” Jarvis murmurs, and suddenly Tony is enveloped in him. He’s warm and smells like peppermint and home. “How was the homeland,” he chuckles into his hair.

“Wonderful,” Tony sighs back, and Jarvis releases him and steps back.

“You’re just taking them to the airport?” he asks, eyeing the luggage. There’s not enough for Jarvis too.

“Yes. although, your father insists on driving so who knows who long that’ll take.”

Tony laughs, “how about we do hot chocolate when you get back?”

“I’d love that.” Jarvis says sincerely. 

“Jarvis?” his mother's voice echoes through the room, and she steps into the foyer, “We've got to go soon, with Howard driving and all.”

“Bye, Jarvis,” he says, and turns to go to his workshop. 

“ _See_ you, Master Anthony.”

That’s the last time anyone alive ever sees Jarvis.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't go to the funeral because Jarvis doesn't have one. The Stark family is his life. Was, sorry. He didn't have any other friends. 

His army buddies are either dead or too far away to visit, he didn't really have any family after his mother died before Tony was born, and he spent all his evenings with Benny Goodman and Ana. So, there's no one left to host. 

But he does visit him. He just kinda stares at the grave, at the fresh soil and the cleanliness of his gravestone next to Ana's -- dulled by time and weather over the years. He sits down on the green, green grass and pretends he is young again, pretends he is on the Great Lawn and Jarvis is telling him he loves him and Ana is on her way.

He’s not. He never will again.

Jarvis’ death is the final straw, for him. 

Tony submits to himself, to what everyone wants him to be. Rhodey goes off to basic training. He rents a high-end, expensive flat in Manhattan and the first thing he does is host a party. Well, he doesn't really mean for it to be a party, but he invites Ty around -- they haven't forgotten about boarding school, but they ignore it -- and he invites his friends, and they invite theirs, and on, and on.  That one party lasts three days, because people just keep turning up and bringing booze. He doesn't really mind by the end of it. In the end the cops show up and surprise everyone, but the party’s back on after a day and a half.

He kinda gets tired of it. Just drinks whatever anyone puts in front of him, takes whatever they give him. He doesn't care anymore. 

Jarvis is gone. Rhodey is gone. Mama is gone. 

He is gone.

He continues like this for awhile, half-asleep.

And one day he wakes up. 

It's in the middle of a party, he’s thinking about fluid dynamics, and it’s like a switch has been flicked in his brain. He wants to create again. He wants to get some raw potential energy in his hands and twist it into something that might just change the world.  He doesn't do anything dramatic, like kick everyone out, but he slips into the bathroom, locking the door and just lies on the cold tiles staring up at the ceiling until the party's over.  He falls asleep there, he guesses because he closes his eyes when it’s dark and then he wakes up in the light with drool on his cheek.

He gets up and cracks his stiff, stiff joints, unlocks the door and steps out to the rest of the apartment. It’s trashed, like more than usual. It must have gotten out of hand when he….left. 

A drink has been spilled into his pristine white carpet. Red wine. That rug cost more than most people’s monthly salaries.

He looks at it for a moment, then just laughs a little. Oh, dear god. Jarvis would have a fucking fit. That just makes him laugh more, in a morbid kind of way. He laughs and laughs and sobs, reaches up to grab the half-empty bottle of red on the coffee table, and just tips the red, red wine out on the white, white carpet. It stains so beautiful, runs and pools and soaks into the shay carpet.

\--

  
  


The idea comes to him as he’s in the middle of a press conference. A reporter asks him about his role models as a child. He’s spewing some bullshit about his father but really thinking about Jarvis. Oh god, what he would do to talk to him one more time.

That's it. 

DUM-E? He’s just the  _ beginning _ . The scout of a new era. What if he were to make a version of Jarvis, one that would never leave? Artificial Intelligence. 

\--

He spends three days holed up in his workshop, typing frantically, sculling the last of whiskey bottles and chasing it with stale potato chips. 

Pepper finally gets him to leave the worship for a minute. She takes him to the kitchen and starts making a sandwich, as he rants on and on.

“Alright,” Pepper says cutting him off, “so you’re making a -- an AI? Which is like a giant human consciousness in the sky.”

“Well, technically not human, and not in the sky, but essentially, yes.” 

Pepper blinks, twice, “okay, Tony.”

He's pretty sure she thinks he's insane, but so does everyone else.

“Hello, Jarvis,” Tony breathes, and the lights flash. 

“Hello, sir.” JARVIS says back. 

\--

“Do you know what it’s like, JARVIS?” he asks, “To miss you?” he asks his workshop one night, after he’s had one too many drinks and too much nostalgia. 

“I cannot miss myself, sir,” he intones in his clean voice. It’s  _ such _ a Jarvis thing to say that Tony rocks over in his chair and cries. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he whispers. “You wouldn't.”

There's a few long, tolled out beats of silence. “Are you alright, sir?”  _ Sir _ . Not Master Anthony. This is not Edwin Jarvis. 

“No, JARVIS. I’m not,” he says honestly. It surprises him. He can't remember the last time he was truthful like that. 

There's a pause, almost missable, but not for JARVIS. This is the equivalent of a millennia for him. “I have found 213 certified and vetted therapists in the Los Angeles area.”

Tony snorts. “Book me a flight to Long island.”

Jarvis does, and the next day he’s stepping onto a private airfield then climbing into a taxi that takes him to a neat graveyard a few miles from the manor. 

Their gravestones look the same, maybe a little more overgrown, a little more worn. There's some leaves over Jarvis. 

“Hi, guys,” he whispers, and his heart aches in his chest.  “How are you? Anything going on down there?”

Silence. A bird cries, in the background, Tony looks up into the sky to perhaps consider this was not the best idea. 

“I miss you both. I always will. I miss Peggy too. And mother, sometimes.”

He sits and thinks of the best thing to say, how to materialise all that he is thinking into a few words. 

“I don't know who I am anymore,” he says finally. Even the birds don't answer. "I really don't."

"I guess I'm Tony Stark. But that's the obvious answer. It never really is the obvious answer." He's finally learnt that. People are not simulations, not computer code that can only act inside it's parameters, they do unpredictable things like start a three-day-long party or ruin a very expensive rug. "And I know if you were still alive, maybe things would not be as different as they are now, but I also think it would still all be a mess. I'm a bit of a mess. Have been for years."

He sighs, and exhales out all the things he's dreamed his sunless life.  "I miss you. I love you."  Some people enter the graveyard, he coughs, and scuffs his feet, and chokes out the words: “Hear you later, Jarvis.”


End file.
